In the course of being on a boat for a long
time you come into contact with all sorts of people. In the case of Sea Wolf
you come into contact with a lot of mechanics given the ‘defects’ we have been
dealing with.
When we arrived at Shelter Bay Marina,
close to the Panama Canal on the Caribbean side, we had a number of significant
issues to address. The anchor windlass base-plate had completely corroded in
the San Blas Islands, the consequence of it being 17 years old and in a
location which is permanently being attacked by salt residue. Solution – remove
the corroded plate and motor, find out the model number, order a new part and
fit. All fairly straightforward bar the over promising and under delivering
Fedex. Similarly a new relay was ordered for the bowthruster.
Then came the fridge/freezer system. I
really will try and save you the tedious mechanics, but some description of
this is necessary to understand the issue, and by extension the man for the
job, Alejandro Lopez.
He came into my life on Sunday 31st
May. It was good of him to come on a Sunday, especially as he lives in Panama
City, at least 90 minutes away by car. A short man in his mid-thirties, slightly
rotund, well groomed black hair and the arrogant swagger of someone confident
of fixing your mechanical problems. He drove a Volvo and wore Ray Ban’s,
somewhat exotic in Panama which gave further lustre to his capability. Just the
person I needed I thought.
I explained the problem, that the engine
driven (DC) fridge/freezer wasn’t working, but that the independent AC system
was (powered by either shore power or the generator). He wasted no time in squeezing
into the engine bay and confirming what we already knew, that there was no
power coming from the magnetic clutch. Alejandro quickly suggested he remove
the clutch, try to get a new one in Panama City, though failing that re-wire
the existing one and reassemble. Just the sort of can-do attitude I was looking
for.
He talked a lot, and as I’d been on my own
on the boat for a couple of weeks I enjoyed asking the kind of open questions,
whilst handing him spanners, that gave him the room to express himself. And
express himself he did.
Half Costa Rican half Panamanian, he had
strong views on the full hand-over of the Canal in 2000 by the US, believing it
to be a big mistake to lose the presence of so many Americans in the country on
the basis of what they brought to the national economy, as well as the
legitimacy they leant to the Panamanian Government. This has been the major
political issue since Panama achieved nation status (with US backing, sound
familiar?) in 1903. We also covered topics as diverse as the Kuna Indians (“I’m
not racist but I can’t stand those people”) and prostitution in Panama City. He
was formerly an aircraft mechanic before setting up on his own repairing boats,
though apparently he could have been a doctor.
He returned on Wednesday with the rewired
clutch, though when this was installed and we turned on the engine this is when
the fun really started. It transpired that while the clutch was now engaging
the compressor, the compressor itself was knackered. And so it continued along
the whole fridge/freezer system chain until we had replaced more or less all
component parts. Furthermore, as we got deeper into it, the AC system (which
till now had been working fine) stopped working due to shared electrical
connections with the DC system. So two weeks into the work we were a small
fortune down on parts and actually in a worse position than before the work
began.
Despite these set-backs Alejandro’s
confidence in his ability to complete the work remained a persuasive force. That
was until the final freon gas loading phase, when Alejandro’s body language shifted
from prancing peacock to that of a person under pressure and at the limit of
his own understanding of the matter in question. The freon loading, a dark art
of injecting gas into the system under the right pressure and temperature
conditions, was not going as expected and he didn’t know why. After struggling
on aimlessly for a little too long he finally admitted he needed help and spoke
to the manufacturer, who was more than helpful in discussing the issue with him
and even agreed to send two technicians who were in the area over to the boat
to have a look.
Armed with some larger orifices through
which the freon could pass and a dose of reassurance from experts, the system
miraculously became fully loaded and the swagger returned.
This wasn’t quite the end though. Having passed through the Panama Canal and halfway to the Las Perlas Islands the engine driven fridge/freezer ominously stopped working. So with a sinking feeling we headed back to Panama City where Alejandro met us at anchor, late on a Sunday evening. You certainly couldn’t fault his commitment (or was it that the bank transfer for the work hadn’t yet taken place?). The issue was a faulty brand new compressor which Alejandro returned and replaced first thing Monday morning.
From beginning to end it tool a month to compete the work, during which time I met his father (dead ringer for the Spanish golfer Miguel Angel Jimenez) and brother in a professional capacity on the boat, and his wife and daughter in a more social setting. We shared scores of What's App messages and I came to love his use of emojis - bombs and guns among his favourite.
All smiles after a job well done, Bridge of the Americas, Panama City
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